"America really is the home of the free. Free bathrooms, free ketchup, free samples."--Jon Salvilla

In Berlin, during the 3 hours of sunshine we had while we were there, we managed to take the greatest picture ever!

Back in Freiburg!

I made it back to Freiburg yesterday after a long, long day of travel.
My flight left from Boston at 4:30 and I'm pretty sure I might have gotten swine flu on the plane. The lady behind me was hacking up a lung and clearing her throat disgustingly every 2 seconds, which made it really hard to get any sleep at all. There was a huge tour group on the plane and they were all talking loudly, walking around, and laughing obnoxiously during the entire flight. They were also taking a ton of pictures with the flash on which is one of my hugest pet peeves. Needless to say, I was not in a happy mood during the plane ride.

It was awesome getting off because since I have a visa, I was just waved right through passport control. My flight landed at 5:25am and there was a 5:55am train that I really wanted to catch back to Freiburg. I ran about a mile to the train station, bought my ticket from the machine, and hopped on the train with only 5 minutes to spare. It made me laugh thinking about when I arrived in Germany back in March and sat on the train track for 2 hours waiting for my train to come. I'm pretty sure I would have never been able to figure out the ticket machines back then!

I arrived back in Freiburg at 8am and laid in my bed for a while before I had to go to class at 10. That was a bad decision. I could not keep my eyes open, and every time I shut them I would immediately start dreaming or hallucinating. My notes make no sense and I have no idea what went on in class yesterday! When it was over, I came back to my room and fell asleep as soon as I hit the pillow for 4.5 glorious hours of dreamless sleep.

I was awoken by a phone call from Emily telling me to come meet the gang in town because we needed to plan our upcoming trip to Berlin. I got on the tram and it was downpouring so hard that the rain was coming in sideways, getting everyone soaked! 3 stops down the line, and with 3 more to go, the tram stopped and all the lights went out. You could see the Germans melting down about being late. After about 5 minutes, the driver came over the PA and told us that there were technical difficulties and he couldn't go any farther. This of course messed up the entire tram system, since no trams after him could come either. I walked the rest of the way to the University and by this time it had thankfully stopped raining.

Suddenly I realized that I hadn't eaten since about 4:30am on the plane, so we went to one of our usual spots, Tacheles, for dinner. There is a special before 6pm where you can get a schnitzel of your choice, a salad, and a side all for only 6,50! It was a great way to come back to Germany, but I was still reminded of home: there was a news story that kept appearing on the tv in there about the John Hancock building!

Reverse Culture Shock

So I'm back in the US for a few days because last night my sister graduated from high school and I wanted to be here to see it. There are a lot of crazy things about the US that I can't handle. Here is my list:

1. Everything is in English. Everyone speaks English. Usually when I hear someone speaking English, I do a double take because I'm so surprised to hear it. Yesterday I did about a dozen double takes all day.
2. Yesterday I went out to breakfast with my best friend. The service at the restaurant was amazing! The waitress was super nice and asked me if I wanted more ice in the FREE water I got with my meal.
3. My sister's graduation was moved to the gym because of rain. We got there before the doors opened. The people had formed a neat and orderly line and NO ONE pushed!
   
4. I bought something that cost $1. I went into my coin purse to pull out a $1 coin but we don't have them here (well not really anyway). The cashier rang it up and it cost $1.05. I had completely forgotten about sales tax.
5. My dog either forgot who I was, or was more excited for the treat my dad was holding and didn't care that I had come home.
6. My sister actually gave me a hug at the airport.
7. I sneezed at the post office and the woman behind me said, "Bless you."
   
8. Random people struck up conversation with me while waiting for my luggage/in stores
9. My American cell phone is crazy. It took me 20 minutes to remember how to text again, and I still feel guilty with every message I send, even though I know it's free. In Germany it costs me .19 per message. I also haven't grasped the idea that I can just call whoever I want and it won't cost me money. Thirdly, I keep forgetting that incoming calls and text messages are not free like they are in Germany.
10. I can taste the artificial coloring and flavoring in everything! Including the orange juice I had for breakfast this morning.
11. I actually WALKED to the post office yesterday. I have never walked to the post office in my entire life. I'm so used to walking everywhere that it seemed like the normal thing to do.
    
12. No crazy disgusting PDA anywhere in America. That is definitely something I could get used to.

I miss Germany, but I am remembering the things that I loved about America at the same time. I'm only getting a taste of it now, I'm headed back to Germany on Monday and won't be back in the United States until August 20.

Salzburg, a Photo Essay

I just got back from Salzburg, Austria today, which is where the Sound of Music was filmed in 1964. I had an AMAZING time!!!


First of all, the city is GORGEOUS!



We immediately caught Sound of Music fever and reenacted "Do-Re-Mi" in the Mirabell Gardens


It looked exactly like the movie.



Another part of the song!



Jon Salvilla as Julie Andrews



Jon and Todd went to the Abbey to ask the nuns how to solve a problem like Maria


We checked out some horse drawn carriages in the center of town (slightly pricey to ride on though)...



And attempted to climb every mountain, but were instead caught in the rain, with no visibility!



We did, however, manage to pay the Von Trapp's a visit at their home!



That night, we met up with some nice Austrian boys for dinner at a beer garden.




Auf Wiedersehen, Salzburg!

Here is the original do-re-mi video for those interested!

Kräuter

If you've ever been to Germany, you might have noticed their obsession with Kräuter. It is written everywhere and they put it on everything. I'm still not even 100% sure what it is.
The other thing about Germans is that they are very literal. One time we went out to eat and Jon wanted to order schnitzel with Kräuter butter, but he wasn't sure what it was, so he asked the waitress.
She laughed and said, "Butter...mit Kräuter..."
According to my German/English dictionary, Kräuter is defined as herbs, but it doesn't get any more specific than that. I've had Kräuterbutter, Kräuter salad dressing, cheese with Kräuter, and the other day when I went to buy toothpaste, I had to try the Kräuter kind, made by Crest. Really? Kräuter flavored toothpaste? Where does the line get drawn here?

Munich

Ok, so I know that I was going to write about Munich yesterday, but it was TOO HOT in Freiburg, and Germans don't believe in air conditioning, so I spent most of the day trying to keep cool, which meant not having the hot computer on my lap.

I had such an awesome time in Munich, it was a great weekend spent with great people. We left in the morning on Thursday and decided to go there the cheap way, which means all regional trains. We had to stop and switch trains a bunch of times, the coolest place being in Ulm, which is right on the border of Bavaria. We had an hour wait there and found out it was home to the biggest church tower in the world, so we went to check it out. It was pretty awesome, but we ended up missing our connection. Also a fun fact: Ulm is the birthplace of Albert Einstein!

We finally arrived in Munich hot and tired. The eight of us checked into our hostel and then went straight to the Hofbrauhaus, the most famous beer hall in the world, for a traditional German dinner. I got bockwurst with sauerkraut. I have lived in Germany for 3 months but I am still not a fan of sauerkraut, grosssss. We headed back after dinner because we were too exhausted to go anywhere else.

Being in one hostel room with 7 other people is totally ridiculous and totally hilarious. Since we all knew each other, it was non-stop joking and ripping on each other. The only problem with our room is that there was only one bathroom! Since I wake up so early, I was put in charge of getting people moving in the morning. On average, it took us between 2.5 and 3 hours every morning to get ready, since some people are sloooow movers. It was hilarious though trying to figure out who the sleep talkers, snorers, and loud sighers were, and frightening when the person on the bunk above you moved!

The next morning when we all did manage to get up and moving, we went to explore the city. We saw 3 different churches (Europe is all churches if you haven't realized by now, and maybe a castle or 2 thrown in for good measure) and went to the Marienplatz to see the world famous Glockenspiel chime at 11:00. It was slightly disappointing, but definitely something we couldn't miss while we were there.

In the afternoon we split up. Some of us wanted to go to the concentration camp Dachau, and some people wanted to stay behind. I decided to go. Dachau was the only concentration camp open during the entire war from 1933-1945 and was one of the worst labor camps during this time. Upon arrival, there was a path that led up to the main gates which read Arbeit macht Frei (work will set you free) and all the prisoners saw as they entered the camp. Some American tourists decided it would be cool to shut themselves inside the prison gates and have people take pictures of them stuck inside a concentration camp, which I found to be totally classless and kind of disgusting. Anyway, inside there was a big courtyard where the prisoners had to line up every day for roll call and stand for hours and hours. I visited the inside of a bunker where hundreds of people were crammed into tiny little beds, a really large and extensive museum that told the entire history of the camp, and the crematorium/gas chambers which was the most chilling part of the concentration camp. Most of Dachau was burned down after the war ended, but there were still the foundations of all the bunkers where the thousands of prisoners
were kept. The whole experience was very moving and I'm glad I decided to go and learn more about the darker side of the country I'm studying in.

The next day, we took a two hour train to Neuschwanstein, the castle that Walt Disney based the ones in Disneyworld and Disneyland on. When we got there, we took a bus to the foot of the mountain and then had to hike up to the castle. It was very hot and we were all sweaty. We had to get a guided tour (there is no other option), and we had a 3 or 4 hour wait, so we decided to hike around the gorgeous surrounding area and wandered upon an alpine stream with freezing cold water. We dipped our feet in and immediately felt refreshed. When it was finally time for the tour, some of us decided to do it in English and some chose to do it in German. I chose English and kind of regretted it a little, again because of ridiculous American tourists that think it's ok to bring little kids and let them scream and climb all over everything. The castle itself was actually really interesting. It was built by King Ludwig II and took 17 years before it was complete enough for him to move in. He only lived there for a little more than 100 days before he was mysteriously found dead in a lake in Munich. To this day, no one knows how he died and the castle remained unfinished, but opened to the public only 6 weeks after his death in 1886.

That night, after a terrible train ride home filled with just about every crazy person living in Munich, we met up with Jeff's friend living in the city and she brought us to a restaurant where all the Munich locals eat. I ordered some wieners and they were amazing. I discovered I am also not a fan of potato salad either, though.

In the morning, some of us headed back to Munich, some decided to travel on, and some remained in Munich for the rest of the day. I was part of the crew who headed home early which was kind of a terrible experience filled with long, hot, train rides, OBNOXIOUS children, too many changes, and one train that just didn't show up at all and stranded us at a tiny hick station in the middle-of-nowhere Germany. Coming back to the Freiburg Hauptbahnhof is always an amazing feeling though and we all agreed that there's no place like home.

We Did It

We're amazing!
More on my trip to Munich tomorrow, too exhausted to update tonight!

Freiburg Dancing

Everyone thinks this video is either awesome or really lame.
I think it's awesome. It shows all the cool things in Freiburg.

Always an Adventure

I love how everything in Germany turns into an adventure, whether it's intended to be or not.

Yesterday I needed to go to DHL to pick up a package that I received on Saturday but wasn't around to sign for. I took Jon with me to the next stop down the line on our tram because that's where I thought we were supposed to be, but the only thing we found there was a post office, not a DHL. We checked out the address on the slip and realized we weren't where we were supposed to be. Jon had a public transit map on him and we pulled that out and had to take the tram another stop down and then hop on a 15 minute bus. We ended up in the ghettos of Freiburg, and this DHL actually ended up being a huge machine in the middle of a parking lot! I found a picture of it online so you can get a better idea of what it looked like.

I had to scan the barcode on my slip into the machine, and then enter my name and sign the screen. I pushed a button and all of a sudden one of the gray doors on the right hand side slid open and my package appaeared! It was probably the coolest thing I've ever seen in my life.

I had to carry my 8 pound package all the way back into town for adventure #2. On Sunday I was an idiot and not paying attention at the ATM. I meant to put in my card from my bank at home, but instead put in my Deutsche Bank card. I put in the wrong PIN and then tried to take out more money that I had in that account. The result was that the ATM retained my card and told me to contact my bank immediately. Of course this happened on a Sunday so there was nothing I could do until yesterday. The woman behind the counter was very nice though and I explained to her my sitaution in German. Turns out, you can only get your PIN wrong four times IN YOUR LIFE and then they keep your card. I had entered my PIN wrong 3 times in the past 2.5 months I guess so now I'm getting a new card and new PIN sent to me.

And for those wondering, my package contained all delicious American food: pop tarts, Ranch dressing, cheez-its, Ritz crackers, Oreos, Goldfish, etc. AMAZING! :-)

Bonjour from Strasbourg!

Our best video yet: